Testmoz

What Testmoz is

Testmoz is a web-based test generator for teachers, trainers and employers who want to build a quiz, send it out as a link and have it graded automatically. Its home page puts the promise plainly: "Distribute your tests online and get the results instantly. Testmoz does all the grading for you." It is an assessment tool rather than a course platform: there are no lessons, no course pages and no checkout for selling content, only tests, the people who take them and the results they leave behind.

The FAQ says Testmoz has been around since August 2009 and that "hundreds of millions of questions have been answered on Testmoz" in that time. It also says the site is run by one developer, who built it in college and still runs it alongside other projects. That candor runs through the whole product. The pricing page opens with "Like everything about Testmoz, it's simple", and the FAQ explains that new features are only added when they are really worth it, because the application has to stay simple or people will stop using it.

Building a test

Making a test follows three steps on the home page: adjust a few settings, add your questions on a single page, then distribute the URL. The editor autosaves while you work and supports undo and redo. Questions can be reordered by drag and drop, copied, switched between question types without retyping the answers, and moved into pools.

The features page lists the graded question types as multiple choice (choose one), multiple choice (choose many), true/false, matching, fill-in-the-blank and essay. Ungraded or survey questions come as single and multiple choice, true/false, matching, short answer and long answer. The home page adds ordering, numeric and file-upload questions to the list. Question banks are supported: the features page gives the example of a 10 question test drawn from a pool of 50, and a test can hold several pools.

Questions can be imported from your other tests by searching for them, or from a properly formatted Excel file. Several quizzes can be combined into one test, a quiz can be copied, and a copy can be shared with a colleague. Members can upload images into questions and answers; others can only use images that are already online. Audio and video from a third-party host such as YouTube go in through the editor's Source button as embed code. Math equations use a simple ASCII math syntax, and files can be attached for test takers to download during the test. Each question can carry an explanation that test takers see after they finish.

Scoring options include partial credit, negative marking for wrong answers, ungraded questions and a custom end message for a pass or a fail. If you change a correct answer later, Testmoz regrades every result automatically. Tests can also be printed as paper copies, with or without the answers.

Delivery and the test-taker experience

Distribution is a URL. You email it to your students or post it on a website. Test takers do not register for an account; depending on the setting you choose, they start the test openly, with a passcode, or with an identifier code or email address that limits access to specific people.

Settings cover a time limit, the number of attempts allowed, open and close dates, one question per page or all at once, and shuffling of both question order and answer order, with the option to pin a question or answer in place while the rest is randomized. You can set the language of the student interface and match the look to a school or corporate color scheme.

The student side is built to be light. The features page says "The basic student interface is less than 100KB in size. It loads fast on mobile connections, and uses very little data." It works in virtually all browsers on desktops, tablets and phones, and the home page says it restores a student's test automatically if the browser is closed by accident. The page describes the layout as "Clean layout, no branding, and no ads."

When a test taker finishes, you choose what they see: their score, their responses, a correct or incorrect indicator, the explanations and the correct answers. You can also hide all of it and email the feedback once everyone has finished.

Results and reporting

The home page claims "Testmoz has the most comprehensive results page" and lists what it does: search, sort, filter, partition, tag, archive, print and email results. Summary statistics cover score and time taken, with a histogram of scores. You can open any individual result to see every answer, leave feedback on each response and email it to the student, and manually adjust a score. Results can be grouped by student to show their minimum, maximum, first or last score, and partitioned by tag; the FAQ has a video on tagging for advanced users. Everything exports to CSV, which the home page suggests employers use to keep compliance records in Excel. Members can get an email notification each time someone finishes a test. A dashboard lets you filter, sort and search your tests, with basic activity stats at a glance.

Pricing and limits

The pricing page has three options. You can build, distribute and collect the results of a basic test for free, limited to 50 questions and 100 results per test, without some features such as image uploads and email notifications. Once 100 results are in, the FAQ says the next person cannot start the test; deleting results frees up room. Free users can have up to 100 simultaneous test takers.

The paid membership is $50/year and opens up unlimited tests, questions and results. The pricing page says school teachers qualify for a 50% discount. A membership allows up to 300 people taking tests at the same time, and the FAQ stresses this is an account-wide limit, not a per-test one. For larger classes there is custom high-concurrency pricing by email to support@testmoz.com.

Bulk accounts are bought the same way: you email the number of accounts, receive an invoice, and the accounts are set up once it is paid, generally on the same business day. Purchase orders are accepted for amounts of $200 USD or more, and the FAQ says contracts are generally not signed, although orders of $10K USD or more may get a contract review. The source code can be bought to run on-premises for $100000 USD.

Data retention differs by account type. Tests created without an account are kept for 730 days past the last time someone took them and then deleted without notice. A paying member's data is kept for as long as the membership runs and for one more year after it lapses, with an email warning before deletion. Backups are taken regularly, encrypted and stored off-site, according to the FAQ, which declines to promise more on security than a good faith effort.

Support is by email at support@testmoz.com; the FAQ answers "No" to the question of a phone number. Help pages cover the results page, the tests dashboard and publishing a test, and short videos introduce the basic features.

Who it suits and who it does not

Testmoz fits a teacher who wants homework quizzes graded automatically and reused year after year, a trainer checking that learners have mastered the material, or an employer running safety, security and compliance quizzes and exporting the results. A basic test, which the pricing page lets anyone build and run for free, covers a class, and the membership price suits a teacher or a small team paying out of a modest budget, with the teacher discount on top.

It suits less well an organization that needs a long contract, a vendor with a support line, or more than 300 concurrent test takers without arranging custom pricing. Teams wanting a course platform, a certificate program or an LMS will find only tests here: Testmoz is a focused tool for writing, delivering and grading assessments, and it says itself that it intends to stay that way.